Video transcript
CT - Coaching secondary debating - 18. Working cohesively in the prep room

[intro music]

HUGH BARTLEY: Hi, guys. My name's Hugh, and today we're going to be talking about tips for working as a cohesive debating team. I'm going to split these tips up into tips for when you're in the prep room and tips for when you're in the debate.

So let's start with tips when you're in the prep room. I've got three things here. Firstly, it's really good to have structured moments and periods in prep where you let each other speak uninterrupted and some moments where you facilitate a robust discussion. It should be encouraged to have both of those things within your prep time.

Uninterrupted moments might look like, immediately after your silent brainstorm, when each person is downloading and sharing all of their ideas, and you want to really consider each idea that your friend raises with a generous perspective. Even if at first you might be a little bit suspicious about that idea and how it might hold up to rebuttal, with a bit of tweaking, it could be-- it could end up being the argument that wins your team the debate.

So make sure you have those times in prep where people can speak uninterrupted and articulate what they thought about the debate. At the same time, though, make sure you have some moments where robust discussion between your teammates is encouraged.

Let's be honest. If you're on the debating team, you're probably a bit argumentative. And that's OK. Sometimes you'll have different ideas about what the debate's going to be about as opposed to your friend and second speaker.

So when you are, let's say, prioritising your most important arguments in prep that the first speaker is going to say or when you're deciding how to characterise a certain stakeholder or group in the debate, it's OK to have an argument about that. This is a good thing so long as you are respectful, listen to each other, and speak honestly, and your arguments are centred on the debate you're about to have.

Don't be afraid to admit if you're wrong as well. These sorts of habits will foster a good team environment, and they will make-- they'll make everyone amenable to listening to each other, and they'll make the debate prep about the debate itself and about the ideas you're about to discuss and not about the different personalities in your team.

So that's my first tip for when you're in prep. Make sure you have some moments where you can let each other speak uninterrupted and some moments where you have a respectful, robust discussion that will enable you to get the best of both worlds of generating all the best ideas and then narrowing down, narrowing down your strategy so that you can have the strongest case going into the debate.

My second tip in the prep room is that everyone should write the first speaker's speech together. Now, I've seen this in a lot of-- in a lot of teams where they just leave the first speaker over in the corner to go and write their speech, and everyone else sits around in a circle, eating chips and gossiping.

It's much better to put the first speaker in the middle of the room. Everyone is sitting or standing around them, and the first speaker acts as a sort of point guy or quarterback or the conductor of an orchestra. And they say, OK, what am I going to say in my definition?

Cool. All right, Andy, What do you think? Rebecca, what's your idea? All right, now what's the first argument's title again? Oh, yeah, that's great. And then, OK, give me four reasons why this is true. You, you give me two, and then you said something great before, didn't you?

You see how this is going? The first speaker is basically the director, right? They are-- they're trying to take in the best of everyone's ideas onto their page, ready to give the speech, and everyone's involved in this process.

So anyone can pipe up if they think something's wrong or something's missing in that speech. And each speaker can test the arguments with possible rebuttal. So the more ideas, the better speech you're going to get together. Everyone should write that first speaker's speech.

My third and final tip when you're in prep as a team is, you might want to appoint someone to have the final say because sometimes you might spend a lot of prep not really understanding what the topic's about.

You might not know-- you might disagree about what sort of arguments you should run. At first, think of what sort of strategy you should have on the debate. And that's OK. That happens.

But maybe your fourth speaker, maybe the kid on the team is a bit quieter and probably the best listener should be the one that if there is dispute between the teams, between the team members, just to go OK, look, I can see the merit from both perspectives. We're going with Sarah's idea.

Or we've got to go with this compromise where we can do a bit of both. So have someone on that team who's delegated that final responsibility after the discussion has been had to just say, well, this is the course that we should probably chart in this debate. So those are my tips for when you're in the prep room.